Will AI replace Upholsterers?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
11/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 22% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 18% of the work
What the job involves
Make, repair, or replace upholstery for household furniture or transportation vehicles.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(5)
- Draw cutting lines on material following patterns, templates, sketches, or blueprints, using chalk, pencils, paint, or other methods.
- Design upholstery cover patterns and cutting plans, based on sketches, customer descriptions, or blueprints.
- Discuss upholstery fabrics, colors, and styles with customers, and provide cost estimates.
- Maintain records of time required to perform each job.
- Collaborate with interior designers to decorate rooms and coordinate furnishing fabrics.
Out of reach(17)
- Fit, install, and secure material on frames, using hand tools, power tools, glue, cement, or staples.
- Build furniture up with loose fiber stuffing, cotton, felt, or foam padding to form smooth, rounded surfaces.
- Make, restore, or create custom upholstered furniture, using hand tools and knowledge of fabrics and upholstery methods.
- Attach fasteners, grommets, buttons, buckles, ornamental trim, and other accessories to covers or frames, using hand tools.
- Adjust or replace webbing, padding, or springs, and secure them in place.
and 12 more
Also called
Furniture Upholsterer · Upholsterer · Upholstery Cutter · Upholstery Trimmer · Automobile Upholsterer (Auto Upholsterer) · Auto Upholsterer · Furniture Upholsterer Apprentice · Upholstery Repairer
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics